Issues Confronting Female Nursing Postgraduates in Higher Education in the Ghanaian Context: A Qualitative Study.

Background: In recent times, universities and colleges of nursing in Ghana have been in high demand for faculty members with master's or doctoral training certificates. This has placed much pressure on nurses and midwives, who are mostly females, to pursue higher academic programs in universities.

Aim: The study aims to explore the difficulties female postgraduate nurses face in higher education in Ghana.

Methods: A descriptive qualitative study was conducted at two universities in Ghana. An in-depth interview with a semi-structured interview guide was conducted and audio recorded. All interviews were conducted in English over the telephone, which lasted an average of 60 min. The data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis.

Results: A total of 20 students participated in the study, and two themes and five sub-themes were generated from the data. The themes include (1) the academic life of postgraduate female nursing students and (2) the perceived threat to successful completion. The female postgraduates described their program as demanding and stressful owing to the program structure and financially intensive nature. The findings also suggested that students were constantly worried about the perceived threats to completing their programs, which were due to unanticipated events and gender-related issues.

Conclusion: Female postgraduate students in nursing programs have diverse personal, institutional, and sociocultural challenges that confront them in their academic journeys. These challenges are traced to their concurrent roles as employees, students, and family women. Therefore, educational institutions must review curricular content and program delivery modes to meet the needs of 21st-century postgraduate students.

Public contribution: No Patient or Public Contribution.